Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a technique for monitoring an operating state of a network device.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there are device management systems for remotely monitoring operating states of network devices such as printers and multifunction peripherals. In the device management systems, monitoring apparatuses installed on client sides and central management apparatuses are connected with each other via the Internet. The monitoring apparatuses collect network device information and transmit the collected network device information to the central management apparatuses using network protocols such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) and simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP). The central management apparatuses centrally control the network device information. The central management apparatuses centrally manage information of clients who concluded maintenance contracts, information of monitoring apparatuses, and the network device information, and when information is transmitted from the monitoring apparatus registered in the central management apparatus, the central management apparatuses store the transmitted information therein.
The monitoring apparatuses collect, from one or more network devices as monitoring targets, information such as operation information of the relevant network devices. On the other hand, there are network devices having monitoring functions similar to those of the monitoring apparatuses and of which the monitoring functions are enabled. The monitoring function includes a function of receiving and executing an instruction and a setting from the central management apparatus and a function of directly transmitting information similar to the one collected by the monitoring apparatus to the central management apparatus. Whether to use the monitoring apparatus or the network device of which the monitoring function is enabled is selected according to conditions such as a network environment of the client side and information to be collected.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-135552 describes a method that a network device of which a monitoring function is enabled changes a transmission destination of information not to a central management apparatus but to a monitoring apparatus. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-63992 describes a method in which a network device changes, with respect to a request from a monitoring apparatus to change a transmission destination of monitoring information, the transmission destination of the monitoring information when not being monitored by another monitoring apparatus.
However, a client environment may include a network device of which the monitoring function is enabled and a network device of which the monitoring function is not enabled or which does not have the monitoring function in a mixed manner in some cases. Under such an environment, a service person needs to determine a monitoring mode settable for a network device based on a capacity of each model of the network device and individually perform initial installation including an initial setting on each network device by manual. Thus, the above-described conventional techniques have a risk of causing an erroneous operation in the initial installation when operations are started. Accordingly, there is a risk of, for example, omission of setting or redundant registration of the monitoring function with respect to the network device.
Thus, according to the conventional techniques, it is difficult to efficiently perform the initial installation of the network device at the start of operations under a client environment in which the network device of which the monitoring function is enabled and the network device of which the monitoring function is not enabled are mixed.